GVMC to send report on cell towers

GVMC will send a report to the government on location of cell towers in residential areas following complaints of ill-health, including some serious disorders.

Recently residents made a representation regarding radiation from a particular cell tower in the city stating that it had caused two adults suffered from fibrocystic disease and chronic ear impairment respectively and a girl from lymphoblastic leukaemia.

The 9-year-old girl, daughter of a railway employee, was reportedly affected by cancer and after treatment for about two years at Mumbai and other places was cured of it now.

Her father and residents in a representation quoted the report of Prof. Girish Kumar, a professor of Electrical Engineering Department of IIT, Bombay and urged that the cell towers be removed from the residential areas in the larger interest of the citizens.

The “Report on cell tower radiation” was submitted to the Secretary, Department of Telecommunications, in December 2010.

“We have also received personal complaints from about five, six other persons that they had problems like suffering burns,” Municipal Commissioner M.V. Satyanarayana said.

Mr. Satyanarayana said till now permissions were not denied to cell tower companies after an apex court direction that it should not be resorted to as ill-effects on health were not scientifically proven.

In view of the representations being made now, the Chief City Planner has been asked to make a study and prepare a report that would be sent to the Andhra Pradesh Government seeking fresh guidelines, the Commissioner said.

Slideshow

Workers carryingout repairs to Visakhapatnam District Collector's Office, as it was damaged in Cyclone Hudhud in 2014 October. The majestic heritage building was designed and built by Dutch engineering company Gannon Dunkerly in 1865 and completed by 1914. Photos: C.V. Subrahmanyam